


First Time in Forever

by thekatcameback



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Genderfuck, Marriage, Pepper Potts wedding planner, rule63!steve rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 01:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1531967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekatcameback/pseuds/thekatcameback
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper Potts is an expert organizer, and Stevie Rogers just wants to renew her wedding vows in front of their friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Time in Forever

Pepper Potts has wrangled Tony on his good days and his bad days. She has, on one memorable occasion, literally wrangled a herd of cats. She is an immaculate party planner and a super-competent CEO, and she barely needs a daytimer to remember her schedule (but keeps two, because she is that. good.)  And Stevie, with her big blue eyes, says that it won't be much work. They don't want a big ceremony, they're already technically married. "Just think it would be nice," she says quietly. 

Pepper had, for the first time in a long time taken the bait and volunteered. Maybe it was the love story of Captain America’s long lost sweetheart. Or Captain America herself, who always did her best and stood up for righteousness. Tony’s insistence that the good Capsicle was as "devious as a flock of genetically modified Canadian geese" must have put Pepper’s guard down, because anyone who causes Tony that much trouble must be, at the heart of it, an easier person to deal with than Tony himself. 

So she'd said yes to wedding planning. It's essentially a vacation from the daily grind of business management, and definitely safer than any suggestions Tony has when weddings come up. Stevie pokes her head in occasionally to offer things like "Bucky likes dancing" and "I just don't think it'd be proper to wear white, you know?" And "we thought maybe we could just have pie for dessert. Bucky likes apple pie."

"Of course he does," Pepper says before she can stop herself. Stevie is blushing up to the roots of her hair. The pause gets tense, and Pepper swipes to clear her screen of Tony’s (wildly inappropriate) cake topper design and smiles at her. "Pie, we can do."

Most of the planning is arranging food, which is less finicky than planning a party of the type stark industries throws, but requiring approximately four times the volume. ("I met the Lady Sif, once," Stevie tells her when she passes what Pepper is quickly coming to recognize as I-have-a-favor latte over. "I think it would be really great to have the four of them over, since they mean so much to Thor, if it wouldn't be a problem-" "It's not a problem," Pepper says and considers switching the bacon canapés to five whole roast pigs.) and the flowers (one memorable day, Bucky Barnes himself shows up in her office unannounced and sets a drawing of a flower arrangement down. "She's been doodling," he says in that way he has now, flatter than in the news reels tony had pulled out as a joke. Pepper wants to take the sketch and frame it. "Think you could do something like that?" Pepper nixes begonias off her list and ignores the way Barnes' fingers linger on the clutch of forget-me-nots.) The paperwork, she splits with Maria Hill, who takes an interest in these things but tries to pretend she's being businesslike. Maria handles the forms involves in bringing back to life a World War Two era vet turned Cold War assassin turned boyfriend of a national icon. Pepper makes sure that the press doesn’t get wind of the application for a marriage license and double checks the spelling on everything (she thinks that if a form is filed incorrectly and the marriage isn't formal, it might be the straw that breaks Stevie's back.)

Easy might be the wrong word for it, but Pepper is never able to say enough that she has dealt with Tony Stark and this too shall pass. Even when she's almost certain that Thor has gone off register and gift wrapped a pony for a wedding gift. Even when she walks in on Natasha vetting the ordained minister who had been kind enough to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Even when Tony pulls out a red velvet suit and threatens to make it a double wedding. Pepper is a professional.

The wedding day dawns clear and bright.  Pepper thinks that it’s entirely possible that it wouldn’t dare do less for Captain America (who has a pale blue sundress and a bouquet with daisies and shoes so sensible that even Maria had looked at them doubtfully.)  She rises long before Tony to check that everything’s in order, still in yoga pants and a tank top.  Stevie is inhaling a viscous green drink in the kitchen, but waves and smiles around the lip of her glass.  

“Big day,” Pepper murmurs.

“I’ve been waiting,” Stevie says confidently.  “Isn’t there anything I can do to help set up?”

Pepper has triple checked the caterers and the florists and Tony has built a new table that can bear the weight of both the food and the enthusiastic people who are bound to crash into it at some point.  She has checked the sundress for unexpected stains or tears (and confirmed, very gently, that Stevie didn’t want to wear her uniform- “Neither of them,” Stevie had said confidently, “not today, this whole thing is before God and my friends, and Bucky likes my legs.”) The ceremony is small and Bucky Barnes has been fitted four times for his suit.  (She had confirmed that he didn’t want a uniform either.  He had sneered and his eyes had gone flat and he’d said, “Not even for her, not that day.  She already got hitched to me in a uniform once, didn’t end well.”)

 “Not a thing, except enjoy yourself,” she assures her with a pat on the arm, and heads upstairs to confirm the final touches on the roof.

Most of their guest list lives in Avenger Tower (at least nominally, Pepper can count on one hand the times she’s seen Clint’s door locked) so everyone manages to show up on time.  (On time is twenty minutes early, because Pepper doesn’t trust a single one of them with fine china or punctuality.)  Clint and Natasha have managed to procure drinks from the bar, which Pepper had definitely locked, and Bruce is absently thumbing out a melody on the electric piano.  She’s talked Tony down from his velvet, and he’s come out the other end in his well-worn jeans and a button down that she thinks might actually belong to Bruce.  Thor comes with Jane on one arm and the hammer in the other.  Sif and the Warriors three greet Pepper with hugs, and their gift is definitely wrapped in bright orange paper, and also definitely breathing.  Pepper does not say a word.

 Sam has the rings, he assures her in passing.  (She’d known this because he keeps throwing them and catching them absently, then catching her looking and freezing guiltily.)  The minister is cheerful, with shades propped on top of his balding head and the ceremony Pepper has written poking out of his pocket.  Phil is dressed up with razor-straight lines, trying to act like he’s listening to the conversations around him and obviously near to vibrating with excitement. (“History,” he’d told Pepper after a bottle of red and a night of crosschecking allergies and menu items.  “This is history, and we’re attending.”)  Even Nick Fury and Maria are there, having claimed front-and-centre seats and sharing an already depleted looking package of tissues.  At ten minutes, everyone starts settling into the seats.  At five, Pepper stares hard at her watch, and then scans the perimeter in case Bucky has shown up unannounced, as usual.

 At three minutes, she sees Tony and Bruce engaging in a quiet argument, and at two minutes Tony asks, “So, Pep, isn’t there supposed to be a groom involved in this shindig?”

 The day is still in hand, Pepper tells herself.  Bucky may have been the Winter Soldier, with a file that Tony had (mostly accidentally) told her about in detail, but that doesn’t mean he has to run on military time any more.  It’s their special day.  She is not panicking, she tells herself, because this is a minor glitch in a day that has perfect flowers and (as) perfect (as they can be) guests and a very, very happy bride and groom who just want a quiet ceremony with friends.

 “Why don’t one of you boys go take a look,” she says in her most assured voice.  Really, the problem is that there’s no sight of Stevie.  Bruce goes downstairs by the elevator, and reemerges shrugging.

 “Empty,” he announces to the gathering.  

 Pepper presses her thumb to the tension building between her brows.  “I’ll go talk to Stevie,” she says before Tony can volunteer for that mission.  It is five minutes past the starting time, and Stevie in all her incarnations is never late.  Pepper knows that Stevie wants there to be a ceremony, because she’d threaded the sample bouquet in the armband of her shield and kept glancing down at it and smiling when they were called out with it in place.  Pepper also knows that Stevie wants them to be there, because they have spent five hours going over the guest list as Stevie frets her way through who to invite, eager to assure her friends of their place in her life and worried she’s forgetting someone who might notice or take offense.  If Bucky has taken off (or had a breakdown, Pepper refuses to know much about that process), Pepper will feel obligated to hit him herself and it isn’t the plan she has for the day.  As long as Stevie isn’t crying, she can salvage almost anything.

 The walk to their private rooms is agony, but Pepper distracts herself by checking her email so she can’t think of all the other ways it could go wrong. (Most involve a supervillain.  This has become her life, and if her wedding planning is spoiled because of a supervillian, someone will have hell to pay.)

 She knocks twice, but there’s music blaring out from under the bedroom door.  Pepper steels herself, squares her shoulders, and swings it open.  “Is everything okay in—“

 Pepper can tell herself honestly that she has seen more shocking things. (Tony and three models, the inside of Tony’s chest-hole, the way a pregnancy test shakes almost too hard to be read in her hands.)  She has even seen more unexpected things.

 She has never seen Stevie Rogers on the floor, skirt rucked up and pupils blown and flushing red down to her collarbone with a shape that is unmistakably human under her skirt.  And Pepper is somehow inexplicably reassured to see the glint of Bucky’s arm, even if it happens to be tangled in the fabric of the sundress and pinning Stevie’s stomach down firmly.  Her phone drops.

“Oh, no, I’m so sorry,” she manages and Stevie lifts her head and blinks blearily once, twice before snapping to attention.

“Pepper,” she says, and looks about as mortified as Pepper feels.

From under her skirt, muffled in a way that Pepper will never, ever think about, Bucky Barnes says, “Really not the word I was aiming for, doll—“

Pepper brings a hand up to cover her open mouth, then thinks better of it and uses it to cover her eyes instead.  “I did knock.”

“What time is it?” Stevie asks, and Pepper can hear the thump as she flips both herself and Barnes over, scrambles for a clock.  “Oh, shit,” she says matter of factly.  “Bucky, we’ve missed our wedding.”

“I already married you once,” Bucky says and sounds completely unperturbed.  Pepper risks a glance between her fingers, and Stevie’s dress is back down as she struggles for her stockings.  “And waited, and I’m pretty sure this is our day to do what we will.”

"I _will_ marry you,” Stevie says in her Captain America voice.  She leans down and hauls on Bucky’s good arm with one of her own, trying with the other to smooth down his hair and wipe at the corners of his mouth and straighten his tie in a series of flustered, aborted movements.  Bucky goes willingly but stands too close, glancing over Stevie’s shoulder to wink at Pepper.

 "I’ll just go tell everyone else that you’ll be a moment,” Pepper says weakly and lets herself out.  She can hear Bucky laughing, and it sounds—good.  Reminds her of Tony, the first few times after he’d met Bruce and actually started relaxing again.  Natasha raises an eyebrow when she makes her way back out into the sunlight, but Pepper just shakes her head hard and takes her seat at the end of the row.  Cats and Tony, she can handle.  She refuses to engage in discussion about where exactly the wet-wipes are in Stevie’s room and just how long it takes to will away an erection.

 "Elopement scandal?” Tony whispers.  “Cap against the world, breaking every rule in the book?”

 Stevie clears her throat by the door, and everyone turns at once to look as the organist lurches into an impromptu Pachelbel’s Canon.  Pepper makes a note to cross the woman off her list of future hires; this was definitely on her no-go list.  But the sun gleams in Stevie’s loose curls, and Bucky’s tie is still crooked, and they are grinning at each other like complete loons.  (It would have been a mistake to have Bucky waiting at the altar, Pepper sees from the way they’ve got a white knuckle hold on each other.  It’s perfect that they finally come in together.)

 The wedding is as short as she could make it (Bucky’s request, as he looked pained at the site with the optional vows and crossed out and rewrote words of his own on a battered sketchpad.)  Fury lets out a tremendous sniff and blocks his face with a pink-tinted tissue when the minister recites the poem Stevie had picked (blushing and thumbing the edges until they were worn, then positioning it again and again to centre on Pepper’s desk when she’d brought it in.)  Sam pretends like he’s dropping the rings when he passes them over, and gets a laugh from both of them when he holds his palm out victorious.

 “You may kiss your partner,” the minister says and Thor and his friends let out a whoop of victory.  Bucky brings a hand up to Stevie’s face gently, and she takes him by the waist and swings him around to dip him.  Bucky’s hands are in her hair and she’s got both arms secure around him, and the kiss drags on past the point of coy charm.

 “Tap out, Barnes!” Clint calls from the back row (where he has crouched on top of his seat for what he explained patiently to Sif was a “superior view”), and Bucky shifts his hand away from Stevie’s nape just long enough to flip him the bird.  When she rights him, he’s nearly as red as she is, and Pepper notices the way both his hands linger on her shoulders.  Stevie grins out at them, red but shameless, and tucks her hand against his elbow.

 “Food?” she asks, and she’s smiling at everyone like there’s (finally) no place she could rather be.  Pepper notices that Bucky’s still smiling (but only at Stevie, looking like she might disappear if he blinks.)  Pepper tucks her own hand tight against Tony’s, between his elbow and the place where his ribs aren’t as jagged as they used to be, and thinks that she can start to understand.

 She’d done up a seating chart for dinner, but somehow Fury ends up staring down Volstagg over a platter of stuffed mushrooms and Natasha and Clint quietly but audibly discuss a divide and conquer approach that involves confiscating all of the shrimp toast and Bruce gets waylaid by Tony’s request for cocktails, so everyone just mills and eats things that Pepper had planned to be a four course meal with their fingers.  (Stevie goes for the pie first, looking around for a fork before slipping a slice of apple and a fragment of crust out with a single neat moment.  Pepper does not watch any further when she realizes that Stevie plans to feed Bucky, and instead gets herself the largest fishbowl margarita Bruce can manage.)  Maria fills the plate by her nameplate with salad, and then leaves it untouched as she strolls over and produces a knife from somewhere in her streamlined dress in order to tackle the steak near the end of the table.  Pepper allows herself to relax, because everyone is laughing and (apart from the bouquet of flowers crushed in Stevie’s hand) it could be any other day.

 “So you showed up late to your own gig,” she hears Sam say to Bucky when she goes in for another helping of shrimp cocktail.

 “It was the suit,” Bucky drawls (and kisses the inside of Stevie’s wrist, drawing her attention back from whatever too-intense conversation she’d fallen into with Jane Foster.)  “Dames love a man in a good suit.”

 “You’re welcome,” Pepper says primly, and Bucky looks at her and tilts his head back and laughs. (He brushes past her later on the dance floor and she realizes that her phone has been retrieved from the floor and is now back in her purse in her hands. She smiles at him and he spreads his hands wide and shrugs before turning back to Stevie’s careful attempt at learning the Macarena.)

 “Captain, my friend,” Thor booms, “perhaps we should intersperse our celebration of the dance with some traditional Midgardian gift giving.”

 “Thor,” Stevie says in her nicest voice, “you are taking that pony back to the farm, and I will accept whatever gift Jane has signed your name too.”  Pepper glances at Thor (expects him to be hurt), but he laughs even louder than he’d spoken and wraps her tightly in a hug.

 “A glorious day for freedom,” he says.  (Pepper glares at Tony, who tries and fails to act as though he didn’t feed the line.)  Stevie hugs back as good as she gets, then makes her way around the dance floor to thank everyone with a smile like Pepper imagines that newspapers _wish_ they could get for their ad campaigns.  (Bucky stays in place, nodding along to the music when Stevie is out of reach and watching her the whole time.)

They run out of food and order in Indian for their second course, and Pepper allows herself to toe out of her shoes and curl up in one of the lounge chairs.  The drinking (as it usually does) gets more intense, there is only one small fire, and the sun moves steadily down on the horizon.  Stevie is convinced to part with her bouquet in the name of tradition, and it gets caught by Phil (who blanches in delight and holds it as if it’s a newborn.)  Natasha gets up, declares herself the best man, and makes the shortest and most vague toast Pepper has ever heard.  (Bucky seems to love it.)  Sam talks about finding him again and punches Stevie’s shoulder gently when he talks about friendship.  Nick Fury assures them that he knew all along his invitation had been lost in the mail and came any-damn-way.  (Tony ups the ante with “A toast to the persistent love of our comrades, the Captain and her boy-sidekick, Bucky Barnes.”)

The newly re-Christianed Mr. and Mrs. Barnes (“Barnes-Rogers,” Bucky had said firmly out of the blue one day when they were finalizing the ceremony plans, looking down at the fingers of his metal hand laced through Stevie’s.  “We are not having this discussion,” Stevie had said absently, but Pepper had seen the way her fingers squeezed down harder for a moment.  “Mrs. Captain Bucky Barnes-Rogers,” Bucky had muttered and Stevie had laughed and kissed him and veered off their topic when she insisted to Pepper that really, they didn’t need lobster, this wasn’t that kind of wedding.) vanish even more abruptly than they’d appeared.

“Jarvis?” Pepper asks, mostly to confirm her successful day.

“The Captain and Mrs. Captain have retired for the night, and would like to thank you once again for your assistance in the preparation of what—“ Jarvis pauses, as he does sometimes when he’s been asked to quote directly and would rather not “Mrs. Captain refers to as “the best damn day he’s ever had, especially the start of it.”

Pepper laughs louder than she’d planned to, and waves off the curious looks when she wanders back to rest her chin on Tony’s shoulder as he and Jane explain the rules of strip-flip-cup to an overly interested Asgard contingent. 

“We’re all good?” he murmurs to her when Clint takes offense to double flip rules (“if you can drink two at once, you deserve double the points,” to Natasha’s “and if I can drink four at once?”)  Pepper squeezes hard and thinks of Stevie’s hopeful face when she’d first asked, the glint in her eye when Bucky had told her to stand on his toes so he could shuffle them around without any expected pain. 

“More than,” Pepper agrees and writes the whole thing off as a success. 

**Author's Note:**

> One of my dearest friends is getting married today, and I can't be there in person. This got out of hand.
> 
> May be the first in a collection about Stevie Rogers/Bucky Barnes getting some kind of happily ever, because I am a sucker for such things.


End file.
